1. Did game publishers want to cut discs back in 2007?
Robert Bowling, a former creative strategist at Infinity Ward, says game publishers began pushing to stop printing physical discs in 2007, nearly two decades before Sony's current plan to end disc production. Speaking on October 24, 2026, Bowling said an Activision executive floated the idea during development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and that the motive was higher profit and an end to the used-game market.
Bowling worked on the Call of Duty franchise from 2006 to 2012, so he was inside the studio at a formative moment for the series. He says he first heard talk of abandoning discs in 2007, while the fourth entry in the series was being made. The suggestion, in his telling, did not come from developers or players but from the business side of the industry.
His account lands in the middle of a live argument about game ownership. Sony's decision to discontinue discs starting in 2028 has provoked a backlash among players, and Bowling's recollection offers a longer history for a debate that many consumers see as new.
Understanding the claim requires a look at how the games business works. A publisher funds, markets and distributes a title, and revenue from the first sale of each copy is shared among the publisher, the platform holder and the retailer. Anything that happens to a copy afterwards, including resale, falls outside that arrangement, which is why the second-hand trade has long been a sore point for the companies that pay for development.
2. What did the Activision executive propose?
Bowling says an unnamed Activision executive suggested that publishers could sidestep the resale conversation entirely by going all-digital. In his words, if the industry went entirely digital and stopped printing on discs, publishers could avoid the resell conversation altogether. Selling only downloads would leave publishers in control of how and where their games are sold.
There was a second financial attraction, according to Bowling. Console makers Xbox and PlayStation charge publishers a fee for each disc, so removing the physical product would also remove that cost. The result would be a larger share of every sale for the publisher.
The executive in question has not been named, and the account is a personal recollection from nearly twenty years ago rather than a documented company policy. Activision did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter, so its side of the story is not part of the record at this point.
The claim is also one of motive, not of a formal decision. Bowling does not say that Activision adopted a plan to end disc production in 2007, only that the idea was raised during the making of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Many ideas are floated inside large companies and never pursued, and a single executive's suggestion is not the same thing as company strategy. What the account does show is how early the commercial logic of digital-only distribution was already being discussed.
3. Why did publishers target GameStop and the resale market?
The used-game market was at the heart of the dispute. When a player sells a disc to a retailer such as GameStop, the retailer resells it and keeps the revenue, while the publisher earns nothing from the second sale. Publishers have long regarded that as lost income.
Bowling says publishers first tried to negotiate. They reportedly attempted to persuade GameStop to share the revenue from second-hand games, but GameStop won that fight and kept the business on its own terms. With the negotiating route closed, he says, publishers turned to a more direct solution: if there were no discs, there would be nothing to resell.
A digital license, unlike a disc, cannot easily be passed to another buyer. That is the logic Bowling describes, and it explains why the resale question and the push for digital distribution were so closely linked inside the industry. Over the following two decades, he argues, the publishers were the only ones in the sector pressing to eliminate physical copies, with higher margins, lower production costs and the suppression of second-hand sales as their stated or implied aims.
The economics are straightforward to describe. A disc has to be manufactured, packaged, shipped to stores and stocked, and each of those steps costs money. A download has none of these costs, and it also gives the publisher direct knowledge of who bought the game and when. Combined with the disc fee that console makers charge, the incentive to move customers toward downloads is strong, which fits Bowling's description of the publishers' long-running interest.
4. What was Bowling's objection at the time?
Bowling says he voiced concerns when the idea came up. His worry was that the industry would be giving up the freedom and joy of collecting games in exchange for nothing more than a profit increase. In his view, the proposal ran against the culture shared by gamers and by the people who make games.
The comment reflects a distinction he draws between two camps. One treats games as software products, to be sold, licensed and managed like any other commercial program. The other sees them as art, entertainment, collectibles and a lifestyle, objects that people keep, lend, display and revisit. Disc collections belong to the second view, and Bowling places himself there.
His position is not simply nostalgic. Physical ownership means a game can be played years later without relying on a company's servers or storefront, and it allows a player to lend a title to a friend or sell it when finished. Those practical freedoms, he suggests, were quietly at stake long before the current controversy.
5. Why is Sony's disc plan causing a backlash now?
Sony intends to discontinue discs as of 2028, and the decision has drawn strong consumer criticism. A Change.org petition titled "Don't Kill the Disc" had gathered more than 387,000 signatures. PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi defended Sony and described consumer anger as a "mentality issue."
Bowling offers a reason for the timing. Sony, he says, did not make this move in 2007 because consumer habits have since shifted toward buying digital. In the intervening years, players grew used to downloading games, which made a disc-free future more acceptable to a large part of the market, even if a vocal minority still objects.
The difference between then and now is therefore less about the publishers' wishes, which Bowling says have been consistent, and more about whether customers would tolerate the change. A decision that might have provoked a revolt in 2007 meets a market that has already moved most of the way.
6. Do players actually own digital games?
Ownership is the sharpest point in the dispute. According to court filings reported by GameFile, Sony argues that buying a digital game on the PlayStation Store does not confer ownership. Sony's position, as described in those filings, is that the purchase is a license, and that the license can be revoked at any time.
Bowling says the question matters. As a developer, he says, games are made to be bought, enjoyed and cherished, and whether players actually own the games they purchase is important. He criticizes publishers such as Sony for putting business considerations ahead of the effect that games have on people's lives.
The legal distinction between owning a copy and holding a license has practical consequences. A license can be changed by its terms, withdrawn if a service closes, or lose access if an account is suspended. A disc, once bought, does not depend on any of these. For consumers weighing the move away from physical media, that difference is the core of the objection, and it is the reason the petition has attracted so many signatures.
It is worth noting that the legal argument and the petition are separate matters. The signatures show how many people object to losing the disc as a format, while the court filings describe how Sony characterizes the legal nature of a digital purchase. Together they frame a question that regulators, courts and consumers may eventually have to settle: what exactly does a player receive when they pay for a game that exists only as a download?
7. Where is Bowling working now?
After his six years at Infinity Ward, Bowling worked as a creative consultant at Electronic Arts, contributing to Battlefield V, Apex Legends and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. In 2021 he co-founded Midnight Society to build Deadrop, a crypto extraction shooter. He left the company in 2025 when its funding ran out.
He is now studio head of //18.bravo, which is developing a first-person shooter. His background therefore spans a major franchise, a large publisher's consulting work and an attempt at a blockchain-linked game, which gives him a broad view of how the industry makes and monetizes its products.
What happens next depends mainly on Sony's plans for 2028 and on how the ownership arguments in court develop. Activision has not yet commented, and the petition continues to circulate. For now, Bowling's recollection adds historical context to a dispute that is likely to shape how players buy games over the coming years.
Readers following the story should watch for any response from Activision to Bowling's recollection, and for further developments in the legal disputes over digital licenses. Both will help show whether the industry's long-held ambition to end resale is nearing its goal.